


Blood Wishes

by xaviul



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Body Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-28 04:50:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16716874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xaviul/pseuds/xaviul
Summary: “Do you ever wonder, how life would be different if you were a different color?”You aren’t sure why you asked that. In the dimness of the alleyway, the only points of light are the bright red cherry of Glitch’s cigarette and the glow of her eyes. Eyes that are giving you a look that clearly tells you she isn’t sure why you asked her that either.Two Lowbloods discuss the unique trials that await those with psionics, and how to live with the scars their lives have left behind.





	Blood Wishes

  
**Hadean Dauths, AKA Nestis Phonon | 13 Sweeps | Nott Station  
** **Glitch | 14 Sweeps | Nott Station  
**

“Do you ever wonder, how life would be different if you were a different color?”

You aren’t sure why you asked that. In the dimness of the alleyway, the only points of light are the bright red cherry of Glitch’s cigarette and the glow of her eyes. Eyes that are giving you a look that clearly tells you she isn’t sure why you asked her that either.

You were out on a job, on paper. The two of you had been tapped to go send a reminder on debts that needed to be repaid, and the indigo that had given you the job had made it clear that this was supposed to be some big, dangerous job. He’d talked such a big talk, you’d almost been unnerved by the time he’d finally sneered and gone off to go darken someone else’s doorstep.

Glitch had waited all of 30 seconds before she had told you she already had the job handled, and told you that the two of you were going to hit the town instead. Knowing better than to demand answers or to disagree, you’d just gone along with it. Glitch was the one who knew what she was doing around here after all, and if she said she had it handled, you had very little doubt that she did.

She always seems to have things handled. Maybe that’s why you asked, even if the weight of her gaze feels like a brand on you as she takes a puff of her cigarette and lets the smoke escape from her nose in twin trails, like some irate dragon. The spicy-sweet smell of honey and herbs hangs like a cloak around the both of you, and you wrinkle your nose to wave a hand in front of your face to dissipate the cling.

Maybe it takes some of the tension with it, because Glitch chuckles a throaty noise of amusement as she flicks her cigarette. “I used to,” she tells you, voice light in a way that reminds you of silk over steel. “A lifetime ago. Back when I was young, and dumb, and trying to convince myself that I was fine with my fate. So fine with it, I fantasized about realities where it wouldn’t happen. But the young are often so good at denial, no?”

“Dunno. Pretty sure I’m still pretty good at it myself,” you try to joke, but it falls flat. You shrug your shoulders like that will somehow distract from it, but you know it’s a failed venture even as you’re doing it. Glitch doesn’t fall for any of your bullshit, like she’s twenty sweeps older rather than one… But you’re starting to think that that’s just because you’re used to running with trolls that are younger.

“That’s because you’ve been doing it so long,” she quips, raising her cigarette back to her lips. She doesn’t take another drag of it though, just tapping the butt of it against her bottom lip as she watches you. The sensation of being pinned like a bug from someone’s gaze isn’t an unfamiliar feeling, but it’s one that draws back memories you’d prefer left uncovered. Vexscale was always a specter in the back of your mind, clawing her way back to the surface in the day when you slept.

You tried to convince yourself you weren’t showing weakness when you dropped your eyes from Glitch, but there was no mistaking the bitterness that rose in the back of your throat as anything else. Glitch was at least kind enough not to comment, and again the air was perfumed with clove and honey as she took another puff of smoke. “That better not be mind honey,” is the only stupid thing your mind can think of to change the subject, and even though it’s lame Glitch just goes along with it.

“Don’t worry, I know not to offend your delicate constitution with something like mind honey. My bees produce plenty of the regular stuff to smoke too, I keep them versatile. Do you want some?” She asks, and she’s already extending the cigarette to you as she does. But you shake your head with a delicate curl of your lip, trying to shred that lump in your throat into ribbons. “Nah. It’s covered in your lip goo, for starters. And there’s not even any tobacco in it, I don’t even get why you bother smoking them at all.”

Glitch retracts the cigarette, glancing at the black smudges on the butt of it like she’d never noticed them before. “Priss,” she decides with a sniff, but instead of taking another inhale she drops it to the ground between you, letting it sizzle against the somewhat-damp asphalt before she crushes it under the sole of her feet. “Bad habit from pupahood that I just carried over, and changed into something a little healthier. Heard once when I was younger that they wouldn’t helm you if your airsacs were too damaged, that they would turn down Jejunus miners that had inhaled too much stuff down below.”

“First time I’ve heard about it,” you reply, but it’s more of a murmur as you consider that. Curiosity sparks, as it always does, and you have to satiate it even if you won’t like the answer. “Was it true, though?” You ask, and the sound she makes is answer enough. Not quite a scoff, it was something lighter- but still full of scorn. “Sure, they didn’t helm them. They just went and culled them instead, if they just weren’t worth using even with scarred sacs. And now they issue breathing masks to anyone they decide can spark enough to be worthwhile and let the rest of the lowbloods keep breathing it all in.”

She straightens up, pushing the brim of her hat up as she looks you over. She has some of her silly heels on tonight, the skinny tall ones that make her taller than you even with your boots, and she seems to enjoy the way she gets to look down at you for it. “So yes, I thought plenty of times about being hatched as anything but what I am. I think any lowblood who says they never has is a liar, and a bad one at that. Those like us, at the bottom, we will always yearn for more. No matter how we might try and pretend we don’t, like I did.”

It’s almost funny, having Glitch talk like she was while looking like she did. It it wasn’t for her eyes you bet she could get away with being a highblood, with the way she dressed and carried herself. What sort of lowblood dressed in a full dress-suit? She’s a slim, imposing figure even when she’s surrounded by the filth of an alleyway, in a way that you’re jealous of. She doesn’t posture like you do, wrapping yourself in the aggression so often chalked up to highblood attitude that others wouldn’t mess with you. She’s just confident, in that way that lets trolls know not to mess with her and that you hope will rub off on you, just a little.

“Do you ever think about it now?” You ask next, shoving your hands in to your pockets just to have something to do with them. Crossing your arms feels too defensive when you’re already so on edge, so you make due as Glitch goes back to considering you. “Why would I?” She asks at last, and when you blink your surprise she carries on. “I have plenty, more than plenty of highbloods. I have a career, money, influence. And I earned it all on my own, in a way that most trolls don’t. You have seen it, yes? Trolls that use connections to secure themself, quadrants.” Her voice is bitter, there, and you have a feeling you know the cause for it.

Too bad there’s no time to question her about it, because she isn’t done talking. “Highbloods earn nothing they get. They have no respect for what they have, no humility. They are given everything, and for what? They just want more, and more. They feel entitled to it all, because they expect the world to bow to their whims. No, I do not want to be like that. I do not need the world to spoil me, and turn me into something I’m not. Is stupid to even wish for.”

She’s agitated enough to talk with her hands, each gesture as sharp as her words as she tosses a hand at you. Her claws are as long as ever, glinting gold and catching your eye as she flips a hand like she’s dismissing the very idea from both of your pans. “Best to appreciate what you have and what you work for, Phonon. It keeps you humble, and gets you further.” From anyone else, you wouldn’t believe that. But from Glitch…

She had never had qualms over telling you she’d started from nothing. Worse than nothing, and you didn’t have to be a genius to know that her psionics were strong. A perfect candidate to be powering some ship somewhere, but she was here with you. There were only a few ways that could happen, and only so many trolls would want to work in the shady sort of business you were both in now. You were far from the only escaped would-be helm out there in the world.

And stupid you, sometimes it was just comforting to be around her because of it. Glitch had never let her past define her, and you wanted that for yourself. As if exposure to her might just be enough to make you feel better again, to regain some semblance of normalcy that seemed so damn fleeting these nights. You’d never known you could just miss things being normal.

Your traitorous eyes are prickling, but a few quick blinks keeps any awkward moments at bay. The last thing you wanted was to lose any respect Glitch did have for you by crying on her like a pupa. “I guess so,” you asquise, and you barely catch her hard exhale that on anyone else, you might’ve classified as a snort. “I don’t trust your guesses,” she jokes as she straightens up, pulling the jacket she has draped over her shoulders like a cloak in to place. Once again you find yourself envious of the ease she does it with, but that fades when she reaches out to rap your shoulder with the flats of her knuckles, just hard enough to get your attention.

“Hey!” Your snarl is more instinct than actual anger, and all it earns you is the rise of one perfectly-manicure brow. “Don’t get stuck in your head, Phonon. Is a big and scary place in there, lots of empty space. You will get lost.” She doesn’t stick close to hear what you mutter under your breath about that, but in hindsight that’s probably for the best. She just heads down the alleyway towards the mouth of it, back towards the mostly empty little side-street you’d been strolling down before she’d felt the need for a smoke-break.

“Come on. The teahive will be quiet now, we will get my table. Can even invite along your moirail, no? As long as I am not made the third wheel at my own restaurant.” She grins just wide enough for you to see the doubled, perfect points of her fangs as you hurry to join her, white against the painted black of her lips. “Sure,” you agree with a shrug, but your jaw works as an idea comes to you. “But don’t you dare tell her she can get mind honey in her tea. Pretty sure she had a honey badger contribute to her ancestor’s pail or something.”

“What about in the hookah?” Glitch shoots back, and when you grimace she just laughs again, short and pleased. “Don’t worry, I can keep it clean. I will not drag your moirail in to a life of sin or whatever gateway you seem to think mind honey is.” She sounds smug, but the only thing you can do about it is grouse to yourself as you step in to line next to her.

At least the idea of being with your sort-of friend and your rail sounds like an appealing way to spend the night. The more you can get her out and socializing the better, and you can admit that it probably doesn’t hurt you to get out either. You’d waited to see if things would improve on their own with your situation, and you think they’ve stalled out at your current level. You didn’t want to run or fight something every time anything blue and up decided to talk to you, and if your daymares hadn’t disappeared you had at least gotten used to the new horrors your pan could throw at you.

The rest, for better or for worse, was on you. And as you walked down the narrow backroad with Glitch leading on, you were hoping you could manage it. No matter what, what you were now was who you would always be. The best thing, the only thing, you could do about it was learn to live with your new version of normal.

And maybe someday, you’d be as comfortable in it as Glitch.


End file.
